Chapter 8: Cracks in the Veil

The world presses in too thick, too heavy.

Aldia wakes slowly, the ache in her ribs pulsing like a second heartbeat. A sharp, insistent pain, nestled deep beneath her skin, reminding her that she is alive, barely.

The air is stale, thick with the scent of old stone, burnt metal, and the faint, lingering traces of something sharp, dried herbs, perhaps, or lingering smoke. The weight of the place sits against her chest, pressing her breath shallow.

A lantern flickers weakly from somewhere nearby, its glow stretching in long, trembling fingers across the ruined walls. The space around her is a relic of something long forgotten, its bones cracked but still standing, holding on.

Everything is too still. Her mouth is dry. Her limbs are slow. But her fingers twitch towards her dagger.

Something lingers nearby. Watching. Waiting. She does not speak. She listens. The silence is not empty. It is held. A breath waiting to be exhaled.

And then, a voice, smooth, deliberate.

"You sleep like someone who doesn't trust the world to be there when you wake." Liora said idly, studying her nails.

Aldia tenses, fingers still curled around the hilt of her dagger.

The voice is low, rich with a careless amusement. It drifts through the room, unbothered, as if its owner has already settled herself into the space between waking and knowing.

Across from her, Liora sits on the battered wooden table, one leg lazily crossed over the other. She looks at ease. Too at ease.

Aldia's voice is rough, sleep-worn when she finally speaks.

"The world is rarely kind enough to wait." Kaelen says dryly, her voice rasp. She remembers Liora now. Kaelen pulls herself up, she leans against the wall. Her gaze now match Liora's.

"Fair." Liora smirks, but the expression does not reach her eyes.

A pause.

Then, Liora leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees. The movement is slow, deliberate, a hunter in no hurry to chase.

"You want answers. I have them." Liora says, her voice sharp and steady.

Aldia's breath stills, but she does not move, only raising her eyebrow.

She watches, waiting for the answers. And after a moment of silence, she says flatly, "You assume a lot."

Liora's lips curl at the edges, a sliver of amusement slipping through. "I assume nothing. I know things."

The silence stretches, pulling taut between them. Aldia exhales slowly, her gaze never leaving Liora's. And for the first time since waking, she listens.

Liora lifts a hand, tracing idle patterns in the dust on the table, her fingers moving in slow, thoughtless motions. Symbols take shape, curling lines and jagged marks, patterns Aldia does not recognize.

Her voice, when it comes, is calm, almost lazy, but there is something deliberate beneath it. "The Veil is breaking." She reveals finally.

The words drop into the silence, heavy, unavoidable. Kaelen does not react. Not at first. She lets the words settle between them, waiting to see if they change when given space to breathe. But they do not.

Liora watches her, expectant, as if waiting for something more than surprise.

Aldia has no surprise to offer.

She has felt the Veil unravel beneath her fingertips, felt its breath against her skin. She has walked through it. She has survived it. And the Veil—for all its hunger, for all its unknowable nature—let her go.

"And?" Aldia carefully let out her words, guarded.

Liora's gaze sharpens, a blade pressing against old wounds. "And it's not breaking on its own."

Aldia's fingers curl tighter around the hilt of her dagger. "You seem very sure of that." Her voice is low, measured.

Liora's lips twitch, a small, knowing smirk, as she says lightly, almost unbothered, "I am."

Aldia watches her, unmoving.

The flickering lantern casts unsteady shadows across Liora's face, illuminating the faint lines of exhaustion around her eyes—as if she has not slept in days, or perhaps weeks. That makes two of them.

"Why?"

Liora exhales slowly, stretching her arms before leaning back, her posture easy, loose—but Kaelen does not trust the ease.

"Because I've seen the fractures. They're not natural. They're—guided."

A flicker of something cold slips through Kaelen's chest. She has seen the fractures too. Felt them. The shifting spaces between realms, the bleeding edges where reality should be solid but isn't. But guided?

Aldia narrows her eyes as she let the words out of her mouth, "By what?"

Liora hesitates. Just for a second. But it is the first crack in her composure. "By something older than the Primals." Liora says quietly, her words expressed very carefully. And they settle into the air like a slow-moving poison.

Aldia exhales, slow and deliberate, watching the woman across from her with narrowed eyes.

Liora does not fidget, does not shift under her scrutiny.

She is too calm, too steady—either an exceptional liar, or someone who has long made peace with the weight of what she carries.

Aldia has met people like her before. People who speak in half-truths, who hold their cards close and only reveal what is necessary to keep themselves alive. She does not trust them. And she does not trust Liora.

"You're asking me to trust you." Aldia's voice is firm.

Liora's smile is slow, knowing.

She replies, "No. I'm asking you to listen."

Aldia watches her. And for the first time in days, she listens.

Liora lifts a hand, tracing her fingers through the dust again. "The Primals like to believe they are the oldest forces in existence."

Aldia does not speak, but her silence is permission to continue. Liora tilts her head slightly, eyes gleaming like dying embers in the low light.

She continues, "They're wrong."

Aldia's pulse slows, sharpens.

"There was something before them. Before the Great Fracture. Before the Veil."

The room seems too small now, the walls too close.

 "What are you saying?" Aldia says quietly, but her voice is sharp.

Liora exhales, studying Aldia as if measuring how much truth to give.

"I'm saying the Primals are just as lost as the rest of us."

Aldia does not move.

"And whatever they locked away? It's waking up." Liora says softly, watching her.

Silence.

Aldia grips the edge of the table, grounding herself. The air feels wrong, too charged, too heavy.

"How can I believe all this nonsense?" Aldia tries to be as flat and uneffected as possible, but deep down she knows something is wrong. However, she cannot give in so easily in front of a stranger she just met.

Liora laughs softly, but there is no real amusement in it. "Believe whatever you want. It doesn't change what's coming."

Aldia inhales, steadying her thoughts. Too much, too fast. She has spent her life surviving, but this is something entirely different. This is something bigger than herself.

Aldia softens, "What do you want from me?" Believing completely is something else, but there is nothing wrong in giving it a try.

Liora watches her for a long moment. And then she unravels,"I want you to stop running."

A pause. "And start fighting."

Aldia exhales through clenched teeth. She doesn't answer. But she doesn't refuse, either.

And Liora smiles.

Because she knows that silence is the closest thing to agreement Aldia will give.